


what greater sin was his

by whitchry9



Series: Bad Things Happen Bingo [8]
Category: The Umbrella Academy (TV)
Genre: Broken Bones, Gen, Head Injury, Hurt Klaus Hargreeves, Hurt/Comfort, Klaus discovers new powers, fall from height
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-07-11
Updated: 2019-07-11
Packaged: 2020-06-26 14:18:19
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,189
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19769983
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/whitchry9/pseuds/whitchry9
Summary: Falling to your death takes far too long, Klaus decides.





	what greater sin was his

**Author's Note:**

> prompt: fall from a height
> 
> Title is from a poem by PD Vulpe: https://lostcap.tumblr.com/post/122796042218/oh-but-what-more-did-the-devil-do-when-he

The problem with falling to your death, is that Klaus feels like it takes _for fucking ever._

Honestly, with all he learned about physics and acceleration (admittedly not a lot, because those years got pretty hazy, pretty fast with his discovery of some of the harder drugs), he thought he’d have hit the ground ages ago.

But no. It’s still down there, waiting to greet him like the worst high five in the history of forever. A high five of concrete to his entire body.

He could think of less pleasant ways to die though.

He’s not sure if he’ll come back from this one. It’s not like he’s died repeatedly and come back. Just the two times, which to be fair, is more than most people.

But those times, his body wasn’t flattened into a pancake. Surely there were limits to what little girl god could do? Reconstructing the fragments that used to be his bones surely had to be more trouble than it was worth, even if she didn’t like him that much.

Oh well. He had a good few years. A lot of shitty years, but a few good ones there at the end.

He’s kind of wishing he’d just hurry up and die already, when he realizes that he’s not falling anymore.

“Oh shit,” he whispers to himself, because it’s not like there’s anyone else chilling thirty feet in the air with him. Admittedly, it’s better than the eighty or ninety feet he started with, but the sight of the ground that far away still makes his stomach twist.

Time isn’t frozen, because people are still moving, his hair is still blowing in the breeze, a bird flies past him and does a double take. Klaus waggles his fingers at it.

He is freaking out, a little bit, because he still has no clue what’s happening. Perhaps it’s some divine intervention? God getting pissy at him because he kept dying?

Maybe it’s another power of his? Sure, why not. He’s been sober for… six months now. Huh. That’s pretty impressive. He doesn’t actually know if he’s been sober for six months since his early teens, when his powers were just manifesting.

He’s a little proud of himself for the six months thing when he realizes the ground has started growing closer again.

Well shit.

Okay, he’s not dead. Being dead wouldn’t hurt this much.

But that’s as far as he gets, because shit, it really hurts.

“Klaus?” someone says from above him.

He opens his eyes. Or eye. The other one isn’t really working too well.

Vanya’s face is above him, the sun behind her outlining her frame.

“Oh hey sis,” he says. Or tries, at least. It comes out a bit jumbled.

“Did you fall off that building?” she asks. Her features become distorted with worry. Or maybe that’s Klaus’s vision doing funny things.

“Well, I was pushed. And not all the way.” He’s thinking of how to explain what the hell happened when there’s a pop and Five appears next to Vanya.

“Klaus, you idiot,” he hisses, which Klaus thinks is a bit rude.

“Wiggle your toes,” he orders, and Klaus frowns at him.

“Why?” he asks petulantly.

“So I can tell if you’ve got a spinal injury or not, so I know if I can move you,” Five says, only a bit exasperated.

“You can’t move him,” Vanya hisses. “He needs a real hospital. Paramedics. An ambulance.”

He hasn’t been in an ambulance for a while, Klaus reflects. He kind of misses it. He wonders who’s on shift today.

He might miss a bit, because Diego is there arguing with Five and Vanya as well, and as much as Klaus appreciates that his apparent state of near dead hasn’t changed their relationship, he’d also like to get off this sidewalk sometime soon.

“Guys?” he says.

“See, I told you,” Diego snaps at Five. “Hey Klaus. There’s an ambulance coming.”

“Huh. Wonder if Danny’s working today,” Klaus mumbles.

Diego pats him on the cheek. “Stay awake.”

“Of course,” he agrees. He then immediately passes out.

Klaus blinks to see a familiar face over him. “Danny!” he cheers.

Danny smiles a little and shakes his head. “Hey Klaus. Hold still okay?”

Klaus can do that. Klaus is very good at doing that, especially when moving hurts.

On his other side, Diego is still hovering, Five pacing around like he wants to be fighting someone for making this happen. At his feet, Klaus can hear Vanya whispering something to herself, a calming exercise that he taught her not that long ago.

There’s another paramedic he doesn’t recognize doing something to his leg, which hurt like a bitch now that Klaus thinks about it.

“How you been Danny?” Klaus asks, attempting to make small talk because no one else is.

“Pretty good. Haven’t seen you in a while. Was a bit worried you’d gone and died.”

“Nah,” Klaus says dismissively. “Got clean.”

“Well. Good work. I am going to give you morphine, so sorry about that.”

“Wait, no. Why?” God, Klaus never thought the day would come he’d say no to drugs.

“Your leg is definitely broken, and we’re going to straighten it out enough to get you packed up on the stretcher.”

“Broken?” Klaus says, trying to sit up and look at it, except it’s a terrible idea and he also can’t, because when he wasn’t looking Danny had wrapped a collar around his neck.

“Stop moving,” Diego hisses at him. “Idiot.”

Klaus is blinded by the pain for a bit, but he thinks that would probably be a good idea.

There’s the poke of a needle in his hand, and a rush of liquid. He barely feels it being taped down as the morphine hits his system. It’s not enough to knock him out, but it does make him care less, drifting just to the left of his body as Danny and the other paramedic crank his leg back into position. It’s probably a good idea they gave him the drugs, because the pain still steals his breath from him and then stabs him while he can’t breathe. What a bitch.

He’s rolled and taped down, and moved to a stretcher, and it all hurts vaguely, like it’s happening through a layer of cotton wool. He’s shoved and shaken into the ambulance, and Klaus realizes he’s never really been conscious for this part before. Usually he woke up in the ambulance, sometimes even at the hospital. A day of new experiences, apparently.

Diego somehow manages to bully his way into the ambulance. Probably by using his knives. Klaus can see how that would be intimidating. Still, it makes him a little bit glad to not be alone.

The siren starts up, and wow, it’s loud. Klaus kinda wants to cover his ears except his arms have also been strapped down somewhere. He can’t remember where.

Has the ride always been this bumpy, or was he usually just too high to notice? He thinks that maybe the morphine is starting to wear off, or his body is adjusting to it, or maybe things are just starting to hurt more, because he can feel the ache getting closer, and he does not want that.

There’s another bump, and Klaus’s leg gets jostled, and the pain is right there again, like a hot poker in his thigh, and he can’t help but whimper.

“Hey Klaus, I can give you a bit more morphine, but that’ll be it until you’re in the ER, okay?”

He tries to nod before remembering it won’t work, but it seems Danny was asking him more as just a courtesy, because there’s warmth spreading up his arm before he can try to speak. The pain is beaten back a bit, pushed away from him enough that he realizes Diego looks terrified, which really isn’t a good look on him at all.

“Hey,” Klaus calls to him, and there’s an oxygen mask on his face, when did that get there, “have you heard the one about why mermaids wear seashells?”

Diego just looks at him, halfway between confused and scared.

“Because B shells are too small and D shells are too big.”

Diego lets out a shaky laugh. “You’re terrible.”

Klaus smirks. “Yeah. That’s why you love me.”

The pain he hadn’t realized was building in his skull, or maybe had just forgotten about, he couldn’t say, spiked, and his stomach did a front flip.

“Gonna be sick,” he manages to say before he starts throwing up, and Danny jumps into action, rolling the whole package that is Klaus and the backboard and the millions of straps onto his side. Diego’s helping, he thinks. It’s hard to tell, because the vomiting makes his muscles contract, and all the bones are connected to the whatever bone, he never really learned the words of that song, just the spirit, so it ends up pulling on his leg. Or maybe that’s the flipping over.

He thinks he’s done, and he tells them that, and they flip him back, Danny replacing the oxygen mask on his face.

“Klaus, can you follow my finger with your eyes?”

Danny wiggles his finger all over the place and Klaus tries, he does, it’s just hard.

“Okay, I’m going to shine a light in your eyes. Try to keep them open.”

He intends to, he really does, but the light is like a laser beam shooting straight through to his already aching brain, and Klaus barely realizes he’s closing them until Danny is trying to pry them open again.

“Klaus, does your head hurt?”

“Yeah man, you’re shining headlights into it,” he mumbles.

“And what about your chest or stomach, do they hurt?”

Klaus has a vague memory that they’ve gone over this before, but he’s also been in ambulances a lot, so maybe he’s remembering an earlier time.

“No?”

Danny has cut his shirt off before Klaus could even protest at the loss. Damn. That was one of his favourite shirts.

“I’ll buy you a new one,” Diego promises, which is fun. Diego must be a mind reader. That’s a fun new power.

“No, you’re talking out loud dipshit,” Diego tells him.

Klaus hums.

Danny’s pressing on his stomach, and it’s weird and ticklish but doesn’t really hurt? That’s probably good. He has enough on his metaphorical injury plate, and just picturing that, a broken bone on a plate, is somehow hilarious and he giggles a bit. Diego stares at him.

The siren stops, thank god, and the ambulance skids to a halt. Was the driver new? Had he not driven the ambulance before? Klaus is pondering that when the back doors are pulled open and the sunlight is streaming in. Oh wow that hurts. He slams his working eye shut, and wants to throw an arm across them, except, oh yeah, they’re strapped down. Ugh.

He settles for squeezing them shut tightly as he’s rolled around some more, and the action pulls on tape that someone stuck to his face. A bandage maybe? God, he hopes they don’t cut his hair.

“Klaus Hargreeves, thirty year old male, fall from a height of about thirty feet. Could have been higher, but his injuries are consistent with thirty. Obvious left femur fracture that was reduced at the scene. Laceration and bruising to left temple with likely head injury. He vomited twice on route, his speech has become more slurred since first assessment, and his left pupil is sluggish. Also been sensitive to light. Initial GCS 12, but he’s likely lost a point or two since then. No obvious chest deformity, breath sounds are clear, and abdomen is soft and non tender. He’s had 500 of normal saline and 10 of morphine. Heart rate 76, blood pressure 118 over 62, respiratory rate 14, pulse ox 97%.”

This is fun, Klaus is finding out all kinds of things about himself he hadn’t known. Like why did no one tell him his speech was slurred? He could have tried harder.

“Loss of consciousness?”

“About a minute when he fell, and then he was in and out,” Diego chimes in.

“Sir, we’ll need you to wait out here,” someone tells him, and Klaus really hopes Diego doesn’t get all stabby about it.

He stops rolling, and then they’re counting and he’s flying and he hates it. He’s done enough of that today for a lifetime. He cracks the eye open that isn’t swollen shut to find a lot of people moving around him. He spies Danny among them.

Danny pats Klaus on the shoulder. “You’re in good hands. I’ll see you around, yeah?”

“I hope not,” Klaus mumbles, but Danny grins at him and pats him again.

“Take care.”

Danny disappears, and there is a crowd of people around Klaus, and he thinks that maybe this is a good time for a nap. Diego is nearby with his knives, in case of emergencies, and Klaus thinks he’s done a lot of work today. He deserves a little nap.

And might have presented a new power. He just hopes he remembers about it when he wakes up.

**Author's Note:**

> Shoutout to ShardsOfNarsil for the awful joke.


End file.
